As noted earlier this week, the House and Senate have introduced new patent reform bills for the 111th Congress. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to the Chair of the committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), urging him to delay action on the newly introduced patent reform bill.
Sen. Specter asked that action on the bill be delayed until late May to allow the Federal Circuit to hear oral arguments in Lucent Technologies, Inc. v. Gateway, Inc., No. 2008-1485. Although the court has not yet scheduled argument in this case, it would appear that Sen. Specter believes they will take place during the week of May 4. This revelation is a bit odd given that the court guards the secrecy of its argument schedule until it is released to the public.
The Lucent case concerns the controversial damage apportionment provisions of the patent reform bill. A jury in the Southern District of California awarded Lucent $385 million in damages based on Microsoft”s infringing sale of its Microsoft Money, Microsoft Outlook, and Windows Mobile programs. Microsoft argues on appeal that the jury inappropriately applied the entire market value rule to the products in its damage award. An earlier verdict in the case had awarded Lucent $1.5 billion, but this verdict was set aside by the district court judge.
Sen. Specter believes the arguments in the case will be helpful for the debate on patent reform related to damages.
This issue was very contentious as we worked on the bill last year, and I believe that oral argument has the potential to facilitate a compromise or clarify the applicability of damages theories in various contexts.
Sen. Specter notes that another important consideration is that the Obama administration has not yet nominated a new director of the PTO.
This person will have a significant role in implementing any patent reform legislation and we could benefit from hearing the views of the future Director before we send a bill to the floor.
The letter appears to be a good sign that Sen. Specter is not giving up the fight against reducing the value of patents.
March 16, 2009 at 10:37 am |
[...] action on the patent reform bills that were recently introduced in each chamber. This follows Sen. Specter’s letter to the Senate committee’s chairman, Sen. Leahy, shortly after the bills introduction, [...]